Pubdate: Sun, 03 Aug 2014
Source: Tampa Bay Times (FL)
Copyright: 2014 St. Petersburg Times
Contact: http://www.sptimes.com/letters/
Website: http://www.tampabay.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/419
Note: Named the St. Petersburg Times from 1884-2011.
Author: Drew Harwell,Times Staff Writer
Page: A1

BIG LAW FIRMS PREPARE FOR POT

Passage of Marijuana Measures Is Bound To Bring A Barrage Of Legal 
Questions, And A Lot Of Money

TAMPA - For decades, attorney Richard Blau focused his legal savvy on 
the high-stakes business of booze. Alcohol-industry law was an 
attorney's dream, full of unresolved questions and deep-pocketed 
players clawing their way to the top.

So when Florida's talk turned to marijuana, another storied pastime 
with its own dubious history, Blau's titan of a law firm, 
GrayRobinson, jumped at the opportunity. Blau now leads a special 
practice for clients wanting to capitalize on medical cannabis - and 
bend the laws to their advantage.

"The playbook is to get in and lend a hand in crafting those rules, 
so they read the way our clients want them to read," Blau said. "The 
powerful people are the ones to get in on the ground floor."

Months before the state's November vote to legalize medical 
marijuana, some of Florida's biggest law firms are already staking 
their claims to the lucrative legal minefield of the budding weed industry.

Orlando-based GrayRobinson, which employs 101 attorneys in Tampa Bay 
and nearly 300 across the state, will devote a core of its "regulated 
products" group to the nuances of marijuana law.

Attorneys with Holland & Knight, a prominent firm in Tampa with more 
than 1,000 lawyers across the world, last week released an alert for 
clients on the "legal landscape (and) complex marketplace for 
marijuana-related businesses."

And Akerman, the Miami-based corporate-law giant and largest law firm 
in the state, recently launched a "regulated substances task force" 
with nearly two dozen senior attorneys and public-policy 
professionals ready to advise, among others, cultivators, 
private-equity groups and dispensaries.

"The shifting interplay between state and federal laws presents new 
challenges and unprecedented opportunities for Akerman clients," 
managing partner Richard Spees said in a statement, "and we are 
positioned to help them capitalize."

Groups with ostensible legal ties have filed for Florida business 
licenses with names like Medical Marijuana Business Lawyers and the 
Cannabis Law Group, joining a wave of "ganjapreneurs" grabbing for a 
piece of industry profits.

But the introduction of these powerhouse firms ups the ante, helping 
squash the images of two-bit, Breaking Bad-style "Better Call Saul" 
legal operations and legitimizing what could be a landslide of 
million-dollar corporate disputes.

"We're not the 'pot lawyers.' This is not 'reefer madness.' It's 100 
percent professional, 100 percent legitimate . . . and we take it 100 
percent seriously," said Troy Kishbaugh, a health care specialist 
serving on GrayRobinson's regulated-products group. "We have a large 
health care base . . . and they want their patients to get the best 
care possible. And if medical marijuana happens to be part of that 
medical regimen, they want to make sure they're doing it right."

The state's biggest firms bolstered their practices this spring after 
Florida lawmakers passed a "Charlotte's Web" bill legalizing a 
non-high-producing cannabis strain used to treat cancer and epilepsy.

An even bigger fight comes in November, when voters could pass 
Amendment 2 and legalize weed for a much broader slate of medical 
uses. Its prospects seem increasingly upbeat: A Quinnipiac University 
poll last week found 88 percent of Florida voters support adult 
medical-cannabis use.

If the vote passes, Florida could follow California in becoming 
America's second-biggest medical-weed state, with around 400,000 
patients spending an average of $3,000 a year, estimates from state 
regulators and a national cannabis-industry trade group show.

State regulators have several months to decide on the law's little 
details, leaving a huge window for "cannabusiness" interests pushing 
to find an unserved niche. The state Department of Health's Office of 
Compassionate Use, which is drafting the rules, discussed at a public 
hearing Friday a range of potential enterprises, from 
medical-cannabis testing to home delivery.

Lawyers wise to food and alcohol regulation are shoo-ins for the 
firms' legal-weed practices: Many of the rules facing Big Pot, 
attorneys argue, could look a lot like those governing Big Tobacco, 
Big Food and Big Booze.

Joining them are lawyers with a vast range of expertise:

Health care experts to address hospital and physician groups on how 
to protect themselves while administering, storing and suggesting the 
use of a drug still illegal under federal law.

Banking and financial gurus to advise on securing investment, 
handling money and saving on taxes in what has long been an all-cash business.

Land use attorneys who can help resolve zoning and landlord disputes 
over where growers and distributors can operate from seed to sale.

Even intellectual-property specialists with knowledge on how to 
protect and preserve cannabis companies' strains, brands and 
reputations, in much the same way consultants have long advised 
Budweiser or Marlboro.

For precedent, attorneys here are analyzing the legal laboratories of 
the 23 states, plus Washington D.C., that have legalized medical 
cannabis, and the two states, Washington and Colorado, that have 
okayed weed for personal use.

They also are following in the footsteps of nationwide firms versed 
in guiding the emerging trade. Seattle's Canna Law Group, launched by 
international law firm Harris Moure in 2011, proved "profitable 
almost instantly," partner Dan Harris told the Puget Sound Business 
Journal last year, adding, "We were shocked at the demand." One of 
the group's attorneys, a young University of Miami graduate, was 
voted "Marijuana Industry Attorney of the Year" in 2013 by Dope Magazine.

For the finer details, attorneys said, firms are following their 
clients' requests to lobby their way into influence. Litigation seems 
likely: A proposed rule limiting Florida's medical weed to five 
nurseries, chosen by lottery, has already stirred up legal wrath.

Attorneys have likened their legal timing to representing alcohol 
outfits near the sunset of prohibition, a potentially historical 
chance to mold law and make nice with the grateful captains of a new industry.

But GrayRobinson's Blau, whose practice group is taking on three new 
clients a week, stops short of supporting the "green rush" of 
small-time entrepreneurs. He compares the early days of legal Florida 
weed to that of the American gold rush, in which organized business 
interests, not excited ground troops, ended up with the most to gain.

"All those individual wannabe miners thought (they'd strike it rich) 
when they pushed forward to mine the Klondike ... but very few 
emerged out of that with anything," Blau said. "In reality, it was 
the established gold-mining companies who took the ground, and made 
it their own."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom